Convert HEIC to ICO (favicon)
The camera-roll-to-favicon path: an iPhone photo decodes entirely in your browser — worth stressing, since these are personal photos — then gets center-cropped square and written as a 16/32/48px .ico. Crop to your subject before converting; a full 12-megapixel scene has nothing left to say at 16 pixels.
Also useful: Convert HEIC to PNG
How it works
Crop the shot to its subject in the Photos app, then drop the HEIC here — it decodes privately via WebAssembly.
The photo is squared and condensed into 16, 32 and 48px icons; contrast survives the shrink, fine detail will not.
Judge the smallest preview honestly before shipping, then save the .ico by itself or inside the zip.
HEIC vs ICO
An iPhone photo carries 12 megapixels into a container whose largest slot is 48×48 — a 99.98% reduction in pixels — so composition beats sharpness here by definition. Crop to one bold subject on the phone first and the photo makes a genuinely good favicon; skip the crop and it makes noise.
| HEIC | ICO | |
|---|---|---|
| Compression | Lossy | Lossless (BMP or PNG entries) |
| Transparency | No | Yes (full alpha) |
| Animation | No | No |
| Support | Apple devices; patchy elsewhere | Universal for favicons |
| Best for | iPhone camera storage | Favicons and Windows app icons |
Frequently asked questions
No — that is the whole reason I built this. The conversion runs in your browser using WebAssembly, so your files never leave your device; there is no server in the loop at all. It also means the tool keeps working offline once the page has loaded, and there is no file size limit beyond your device’s memory.
The cases I actually hear about: a personal site or blog using the author’s face, a restaurant or shop using a photo of the product, and quick internal tools where "that photo we have" is the branding. It works — as long as the subject fills the frame before you convert.
It gets downscaled very hard — the largest icon in the file is 48×48. That is not a flaw, it is the job. The practical consequence: fine detail vanishes, so what survives is composition and contrast. A tight crop with one clear subject beats a sharp wide shot every time.
Yes — HEIC from iPhones, iPads and recent Samsung phones all decode the same way here, via WebAssembly in your browser. Burst photos are separate HEIC files; drop them all in and pick the icon you like best from the results.
Both, and that is fine. For a personal site or an internal dashboard, a well-cropped photo icon is honest branding you already own — no designer needed. Where it turns lazy is skipping the crop: a full 4:3 camera frame center-cropped by the tool rarely lands on the subject. Ten seconds in the Photos app first makes it a smart shortcut.
Only if you want to crop and adjust on a computer whose tools reject HEIC — then HEIC to JPG first, edit, and JPG to ICO after. Going direct is one fewer lossy step, so if your crop is already right on the phone, direct is strictly better. Either way the decode happens on your device, which matters for personal photos.
Related tools
Convert HEIC to PNG
Convert HEIC photos to PNG in your browser — free and private, no upload. Lossless output that survives editing, for iPhone shots headed to Photoshop.
Convert PNG to ICO (favicon)
Convert PNG to a multi-size ICO favicon in your browser — free, no upload. One file with 16, 32 and 48px icons with full alpha, ready for any site root.
Convert JPG to ICO (favicon)
Convert JPG to a multi-size ICO favicon in your browser — free, no upload. You get 16, 32 and 48px icons in one file, center-cropped to a clean square.
Convert HEIC to JPG
Convert iPhone HEIC photos to JPG in your browser — free, no upload, no signup. Your photos never leave your device, which matters for personal pictures.